Filling in the Blanks

From the blank page to the gaps between words, space is central to what writers and editors do every day. But just because space is empty doesn’t mean there’s nothing there.

Take this month’s quiz to test your knowledge of spaces and spacing—and to learn more about this invisible yet important aspect of writing, editing, and publishing.

Subscribers to The Chicago Manual of Style Online may click through to the linked sections of the Manual (cited in some of the answers). (We also offer a 30-day free trial of CMOS Online.)

Note: Style guides sometimes disagree. Except for a few details that can be verified in standard dictionaries and encyclopedias and other readily available sources, the answers in this quiz rely on the information in The Chicago Manual of Style.

[Editor’s note: This quiz relies on and links to the 17th edition of CMOS.]

Chicago Style Workout 75: Spaces and Spacing

1. How many spaces should normally appear between two consecutive sentences?

one space

two spaces

2. The space between lines of text is known as leading, which rhymes with

heading

reading

3. The main reason to use double line spacing in a printed manuscript is

to give editors room to write between the lines

to make the text easier to read

4. The process of adjusting the space between letters is known as

justifying

kerning

5. The space between words varies from line to line in text that has been

justified

kerned

6. An em space is wider than an en space, which is wider than the average space between words.

True

False

7. To prevent a Chicago-style ellipsis (. . .) from breaking over a line, CMOS recommends

using five unspaced periods and setting the font color of the second and fourth periods to white

using a nonbreaking space before and after the middle period

8. To enhance readability, typesetters may add a thin space between consecutive single and double quotation marks (as in nested quotations).

True

False

9. A new section is sometimes signaled by extra line space between paragraphs. According to CMOS, how should authors indicate such breaks in a manuscript submitted for publication?

with two hard returns

with three asterisks

10. According to CMOS, what mark would a proofreader use to show that a space needs to be inserted (e.g., to change “backseat” to “back seat”)?

#

a circled S

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Top image: Birds on a Wire #2 by robsnowfolio / Adobe Stock.

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